Newsletter: June 2023

Peace WTP fam, we hope you are staying safe during the horrendous air quality we are experiencing. We know these conditions are especially harmful for elders and others that suffer from illnesses and allergies. Please take care of one another and remain indoors if you can. We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter, so grab some tea and let’s dig in-

Benton Harbor Peace Walk

pictures of Benton Harbor residents and peace walk participants

On June 14, high school students at Benton Harbor participated in the annual Peace Walk to kick off 90 days of peace in their community. Shout out to our amazing organizer Elnora Gavin for giving so much love to make this Peace Walk a memorable one! Check out the story below.

PEACE WALK

Team Garden Day

picture of colorful flowers

On June 20th, WTP staff gathered to beautify the Detroit office! We built garden beds, planted flowers, and vegetables! It was a great time pulling out weeds and finding questionable items inside the dirt (lol). Shout out to our ops team for making this happen!

Celebrating Pride

flyer of pride celebration

WTP is entering our PRIDE era! Social change in Michigan wouldn’t be possible without the contributions of queer and gender non conforming movement builders. On Saturday, July 1 from 2pm-5pm we will be building a mural, eating good food, and having a dance party at our office – all to celebrate queer resilience, resistance, and, equally as important, QUEER JOY. ** Wheel accessible entry is available thru the teal door
** Parking on Bagley & residential streets

Dependable Energy Listening Tour

flyer of dependable listening tour

Join We the People Michigan’s Waasamowin Chapter at the Dependable Energy Listening Tour, July 14 from 11 am – 1 pm, location is to be determined! Waasamowin (or ‘Lightning’ in the Anishinaabe language) is a group of residents in the central and western UP. If you can’t make it in person you can use this form to give your personal experience living in the current energy system and we’ll share it with the task force.

Michigan Legislature sends $81.7B state budget to Whitmer’s desk

Yesterday the state budget process was finalized, although we’re excited to see some improvements such as: increasing the school aid budget for k-12 per pupils by 5%, providing free breakfasts and lunches to all students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade and including a Rainy Day Fund that includes a $450 million for Budget Stabilization Fund for school funding. However, there are other issues we identify with the budget. It includes $40 million for the Macomb County Jail. We know that most city and county funds go towards policing and jails already, instead we need to invest in our community, not jails. And very alarming for us is that once again, majority Black cities are left on the chopping block. Erasing the Benton Harbor, Pontiac, and Ypsilanti school debts were left out of the final budget items. For years, our organizer, Elnora Gavin and her team have been courageously leading the charge to make sure the Benton Harbor school debt is erased in order to give schools a Fresh Start. Elnora shares “Districts like ours have been hit hard in the areas of special education and mental health, so this year’s budget will be critical in ensuring our students get the extra support that parents have been advocating for far too long,” said Gavin. “Immediate debt relief would have gone a long way towards restoring vital programs that have been cut over the years, so removing debt forgiveness from the budget poses a striking blow to our projections, but we will still rise and seek solutions to rebuild healthy programs in hopes that state lawmakers keep their promise to provide debt relief within the upcoming months.” We the People – Michigan will continue fighting to make sure that all our communities have the resources we need in order to have healthy, thriving schools and cities.